


Ode to Strangers

by WolfstarGarden



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ficlet, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 02:36:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11072307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfstarGarden/pseuds/WolfstarGarden
Summary: A lifetime is not enough for some to really know each other. Remus and Sirius still keep trying.Written for the "Ode to Strangers" prompt.





	Ode to Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Bumped this out in an hour or two (yay, hm comes in handy sometimes) because the Introvert Club inspired me and I couldn't help myself. Officially untitled.
> 
> Also posted to my tumblr.

**1 st Year**

They meet as perfect strangers.

There is a huddle of girls clustered around the stuffy, nervous-looking red head, but an obvious gap between her and Sirius, the only other boy to be sorted into Gryffindor thus far.

Remus feels bad for him. Remus knows how it feels to be alone. So he edges himself in and, aware that he has no idea how to make friends, throws the boy a careful smile. It is returned with gusto. Something about the way it curves tickles Remus’ funny-bone. He gestures to the red head. “What’s with her?” he whispers as MacDonald, Mary settles with the other girls.

Sirius smiles so softly. “We met on the train. Potter and I kinda got in a fight with her friend – I guess she took it to heart. Not a great way to start school.”

Remus echoes the wistful smile. “At least she has a friend. I – I was homeschooled and uh, my mother’s illness meant we moved heaps. I’ve never had any friends.”

Sirius blinks his heavy-lidded eyes slowly. “Neither have I. I was homeschooled too. And my mother is half-mad.”

Hope flares bright in Remus’ thin chest. “We’re going to be roommates. Maybe we can be friends too.”

It happens organically. The bargain of friendship borne of a need for company and a place to belong quickly disperses beneath their genuine affection for each other, their shared understanding and easy humour. When the year finishes, they are no longer strangers, but best friends.

**2 nd Year**

Remus’ letters lag over the holidays, and Sirius can’t borrow the family owl as often as he’d like. He returns to school knowing James better than ever, but with an unsettled lapse between the easy camaraderie he’s developed with Remus.

And of course, Remus has so many secrets. It’s strange to have a friend who in so many ways is still unknown.

He doesn’t like not knowing. And when Remus returns to school looking tired and ill but still like Remus, Sirius wants to eliminate the strangeness.

That’s when they figure it out. And Remus – the Remus who is his friend – is suddenly a stranger again. It’s as if he’s never known him or maybe as if the person he knew no longer exists. But the feeling doesn’t last long. Sirius learns and grows and they remain friends. In some ways, it’s easier without the secret. Instead, Sirius keeps a secret of his own.

**4 th Year**

Remus feels strange when he meets Sirius on the train. He almost doesn’t recognise him. Because his Sirius is suddenly a stranger – no longer the mischievous, puppy-faced youth Remus has grown up with, but a tall young man with a subtle sharpness to his jaw and a promise of future attractiveness.

Remus feels so strange he doesn’t quite know how to act. But then Sirius speaks and there his is friend – yes, still the same behind this foreign mask of blooming adolescence.

All the same, things shift subtly between them over the year … an awkwardness that was never there before, an oddness that forces a space between them. It makes them strangers again, but in a very different way. Remus has an idea what causes it, but he’s not brave enough – not _quite_ – to mention it.

**5 th Year**

This is not his Remus. Nothing could have prepared Sirius for this. All the learning and study, the practice and sacrifice, nothing could ever have prepared him.

Another layer of Remus has been revealed to him. They’ve known each other nearly five years, but only now does Sirius feel that he _really_ understands something of who Remus is. He understands a little better this stranger who hides behind Remus’ smile.

Sirius watches through canine eyes as Remus raves and thrashes and glares with hostile wariness from inside his fur prison. Despite all that they have shared and learned about one another, _this_ is something Remus has never explained, not until now.

Sirius’ chest throbs dully. He wonders if he will ever really know Remus.

**7 th Year**

Friendship and time strip away most secrets. There is another.

Their bodies meet as strangers. Everything is new and unexpected, as glorious as their very first conversation, the ground beneath them just as tremulous. But they know each other now; in every way. It’s only the bodies that don’t know.

And it isn’t long before they are as familiar with nakedness and the slope of limbs as they already are with moods and minds.

Sirius traces every scar blemishing Remus’ skin, finds every freckle and kisses it with his eyelashes.

Remus rubs his hands over the beautiful planes of Sirius’ handsome shape and thanks Merlin’s memory for his luck.

**1980**

War makes strangers of them all.

It almost makes them enemies.

**1981**

Remus wonders if he ever knew Sirius. He thought he did.

Sirius wonders if Remus guesses the truth. He knows he doesn’t.

**1994**

They meet as imperfect strangers.

Remus barely recognises Sirius crouched so pitifully on the floor of the Shrieking Shack. But he smells the same and he thinks the same and he _dramatises_ the same. In a sick sort of way, Remus finds it heartening.

Remus takes Sirius’ invitation to wander through his memories. It’s not just the truth of that Halloween that he learns, but also the truth of Sirius.

Something that had died a long time ago wakes up in Remus’ chest. It howls with the starving instinct of a creature waking from too-long hibernation.

They travel together for a time, learning one another afresh. Sirius is different, but the same. Remus is different, but the same. It’s a year before Dumbledore orders them back to the old cottage, orders them to _lie low for a while_. The house greets them like an old friend.

**1996**

The War and Grimmauld Place make strangers of them both. It’s like before, but different. They keep together this time, drawing what little strength from each other that they can. In each other there is familiarity and security. Their love makes them whole again, though their bodies are different. Remus has more scars, but the freckles are the same. Sirius is thinner, but his shapes are still handsome.

It is good. It is _wonderful_.

Afterwards…

Remus becomes a stranger to himself.

Losing Sirius again, he no longer knows himself. It’s harder than before. Remus might have preferred they’d never learned each other again.

But he can’t bring himself to believe it.

**1998**

They know each other.

They know more about one another than any human has the right to. They share a history. The memories are _theirs_. They can’t escape the entanglement, and neither of them want to.

They don’t meet as strangers.

For the first time, they meet knowing each other perfectly. They meet with bodies well-remembered, with a joined heart and shared mind.

It had always been leading to this, though the road was not kind. It wasn’t _fair_.

Remus sees Sirius waiting for him. Sirius looks just the way he remembers. Sirius’ arms close around his shoulders; he smells just the way Remus remembers. Sirius murmurs “Moony…” just like he remembers.

Sirius kisses Remus. Remus tastes just like he remembers. Remus shivers under his hands; he feels just the way Sirius remembers. Remus huffs, “Padfoot…” just like he remembers.

They’ve had to be strangers.

They’ve had to be strangers to know how right, how _wonderful_ it feels now that they know each other.


End file.
